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Jeremy Hunt, the new UK chancellor, admitted taxes would have to rise and spending would have to be cut after prime minister Liz Truss failed to reassure markets with a U-turn on cutting corporation tax. In his first interviews since replacing Kwasi Kwarteng, who was sacked by the prime minister on Friday, Hunt buried the

Liz Truss sacked her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and shredded her economic strategy on Friday, but her effort to salvage her premiership failed to win over financial markets and left Conservative MPs in a state of mutiny. In a Downing Street press conference lasting less than 10 minutes, Truss named Jeremy Hunt, former foreign secretary, as

Liz Truss, UK prime minister, is preparing to rip up the government’s “mini” Budget in a desperate attempt to rebuild market confidence and save her embryonic premiership. Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, is expected to return from IMF meetings in Washington on Saturday, with government insiders saying he will have to scrap measures in his £43bn

The Bank of England battled a renewed sell-off in UK government bonds on Wednesday after its vow to end its emergency gilt-buying programme unsettled markets already unnerved by the fiscal plans of prime minister Liz Truss. The central bank bought £4.4bn of gilts from investors, its biggest intervention since it entered the market last month

Andrew Bailey dashed the hopes of pension funds on Tuesday, ruling out continuing the Bank of England’s £65bn bond-buying intervention into next week. The BoE governor said that although strains had been felt, market conditions in the government bonds “seemed calmer” on Tuesday after it had staged its second emergency intervention in two days. “We’ve

A sell-off in UK government bonds pushed the country’s long-term borrowing costs to their highest point since the Bank of England stepped in to avert a financial market collapse, as new BoE and government measures failed to reassure investors. Monday’s fall in gilts came despite the BoE announcement earlier in the day of a new

Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of carrying out a “terrorist attack” against the bridge linking Crimea to mainland Russia, a key military supply route for its invasion of Ukraine and symbol of Russian prestige. Russia’s president said there was “no doubt” that Ukraine was behind the explosion, which sent two of the bridge’s road spans

An explosion tore through Russia’s bridge across the Kerch Strait to Crimea early on Saturday, killing at least three people and severely damaging its structure in a major blow to Vladimir Putin more than seven months into his invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s anti-terrorist committee said a truck exploded on the bridge’s roadside in the early

Liz Truss has overruled her chancellor and insisted the UK should not set a limit on the number of applications for low-tax investment zones despite internal Treasury concerns the projects could cost billions of pounds in lost taxes. The flagship policy designed to turbocharge UK investment is a key plank of Truss’s “dash for growth”

The White House said nothing was off the table a day after Opec+ angered Washington with sharp cuts to world oil supply, as it considered responses — including new releases from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to contain energy prices. The Opec+ cartel led by Saudi Arabia and Russia on Wednesday agreed to lower production

The White House has accused Opec+ of aligning with Russia after Saudi Arabia led the group in agreeing deep oil production cuts, prompting a backlash from countries already battling surging energy inflation triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The Opec+ group said it would reduce production targets by 2mn barrels a day, equivalent to 2

Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for the initially agreed price of $44bn, in a move that could put an end to one of the most high-profile corporate legal battles in decades, according to three people familiar with the matter. The Tesla chief sent a letter to Twitter on Monday night offering to go

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is to accelerate the publication of his plan to cut Britain’s debt in an attempt to reassure markets after he was forced to make a humbling U-turn on a key part of his “mini-Budget”. Kwarteng is expected to publish his medium-term fiscal plan, accompanied by official forecasts, later this month after previously

Prime minister Liz Truss has said that “Britain’s economy needs a reset” and pledged to prioritise “aspiration, enterprise and growth” as the Conservative party prepares to gather for its annual conference in the wake of a week of market turmoil. MPs and party members will convene on Sunday in Birmingham, and Truss is expected to

The UK watchdogs responsible for the £1.5tn corner of the pensions sector that came close to imploding this week are holding daily talks with asset managers to stave off a fresh crisis when the Bank of England’s emergency bond buying ends. The £65bn plan, which ends on October 14, was launched on Wednesday to safeguard

Liz Truss is under mounting pressure to change course on her tax and borrowing plans after a new opinion poll gave Labour a historic lead over the Conservatives. The prime minister was rocked by a YouGov poll which found that Labour had a 33-point lead over the Tories, the biggest gap since the 1990s. The

The Bank of England took emergency action on Wednesday to avoid a meltdown in the UK pensions sector, unleashing a £65bn bond-buying programme to stem a crisis in government debt markets. The central bank warned of a “material risk to UK financial stability” from turmoil in the gilts market sparked by chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax

The IMF has launched a biting attack on the UK’s plan to implement £45bn of debt-funded tax cuts, urging the government to “re-evaluate” the plan and warning that the “untargeted” package threatens to stoke soaring inflation. The multilateral lender said it was “closely monitoring” developments in the UK and was “engaged with the authorities” after

UK government borrowing costs are on course for their biggest ever monthly rise — and mortgage rates are set to rise as well — following the bond market meltdown triggered by Kwasi Kwarteng’s fiscal policy announcement last week. The 10-year benchmark gilt yield has increased by 1.45 percentage points so far in September to 4.2

Sterling slid as much as 4.7 per cent against the dollar to $1.035, hitting a record low in Asian trading on Monday after UK chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng vowed to pursue more tax cuts. The sharp moves in sterling came early in the Asia trading session, when low trading volumes in the pound-dollar pair can exacerbate